The battle on the phone of the poor bastards

The call arrives punctually around nine in the morning. Or around seven, before dinner. They must have calculated that those are the good times. After the “good morning, Mr. Riccardo Luna”, a certain Max introduces himself as the promoter of financial services for online investments.

Or other times like the energy consultant for my electricity and gas supplier. Or the official of a parcel post delivery company. It happens to you too, it’s the deadly telemarketing calls that no “register of oppositions” – the tool launched by the Ministry of Economic Development – has yet crushed.

Until a few days ago, I usually answered politely “hello, thanks, I’m not interested”. And I ended the call, blocking the number, a totally useless practice because Max himself keeps calling me from different numbers. Then I said to myself: thanks for what exactly? Why do I have to thank those who hope to find a frightened elderly person, or maybe just a fragile person, to take money away from him?

And so I changed my answer: when Max called me, I asked him if he doesn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed about trying to fool people on the phone. I understand that one has to work, but what is work? At that point Max insisted, he scolded me because the other day I would have ended the phone call after a few seconds and ordered me to listen to the financial proposal until the end.

Call center

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At that moment I thought that we are not winning this battle with telemarketing because it perfectly describes a battle that repeats itself every day. In fact, our telephone numbers are everywhere, they are bought and sold by specialized agencies which then distribute the numbers to these poor bastards of Max who, like Jack Lemmon in a beautiful and dramatic film, Americans, look for other poor bastards to give them just one and survive.